Good Overload

I just got home from my second Willow Creek Leadership Summit.  Once again I feel like someone has removed every living brain cell in my head and I’ve been left with mush.  I will collect myself in the coming days.  I never know weather to cry, dance or take a nap after these two intense days.  Yesterday, after my 8 hour leadership infusuin, I went running.  It may have been my most powerful run yet.  I probably should have (blush)…..oh….ya know.  Something about being inspired makes me feel like I have to get energy out.  Either that or it was sitting all day. 

But really.  How can I sum this up for you.  So much great info, so little time.  Here are my thoughts at the current moment, tomorrow may be different….lol!

1.  There are some people who are doing amazing things where they are.  I don’t know if they’re doing it for Jesus, for themselves or for humanity.  But the way they’re helping people is incredible.  I’ve had to question what I’m doing and who I’m doing it for. 

2.  And back to that whole breast cancer thing.  I can’t help wonder what God has saved me for.  Maybe it was for my kids.  I don’t know.  I don’t have anything profound to say about that other than it moves around in my brain a lot.  I suppose if I could choose to do anything, now that I’m recovered, is email my oncologist at U of M, Sophia Merijver and see if she can pack me away in her suitcase on her next trip to Northern Africa so I could do something for the outrageous number of women who are getting Inflammatory Breast Cancer.  I don’t know what I’d do there, maybe I’d just hug them and cry with them, tell them I’ve been there too.  I’m still working that one out in my mind.  I suppose writing her would be OK, but I might get in the way.  I need a better plan.  I’m taking a class this fall at our local community college to see if I can make it in to nursing school.  I can get a second BA in a year and then midwifery in the next year.  It would be two years full time.  Maybe then she would pack me in her suitcase?

3.  My favorite speaker was a young woman who was cute and young and giggly and girly and super smart.  You gotta love it.  This is where our churches just DON”T GET IT!  Women……crazy……but true……can be great leaders (and they don’t have to look or act like men to do it either)!  Not only that but the world is waiting to see us equally partnering in ministry across the board.  Thank heavens an amazing place like Willow Creek who is changing the face of Christian leadership GETS THIS.  Because unfortunately most churches out there don’t.  (Yes this is my little soap box).  So it wasn’t surprising that one of the most amazing interviews they did was with a young woman named Jessica Jackley who helped start KIVA.  If you haven’t heard of this organization, you should check it out.  You an I can lend as little as $25 to people in third world countries so they can start businesses.  Pretty cool, pretty easy, yet the money goes so far.  She shared how one woman was able to send her daughters to school.  And these aren’t big things, these are small businesses, like buying beads to make necklaces they can cell or making peanut butter. 

So those are some of my thoughts.  I have more, but I can’t remember right now.  It’ll probably come to me later.

My Letter to La Leche League

I promised I would write a letter to LLL and well…..I finally did it.  Here it is:

 

Dear La Leche League,

 

I am the mother of three children.  All were breastfed.  The first two were breastfed well past the age of two.  When my third child was about 10 months old I developed a plugged duct.  As a Bradley Method Instructor I thought I knew the tricks to get it out.  I massaged, put a warm compress on, took warm showers, ibuprofen, etc.  When my plugged duct did not go away I sought help from LLL and other internet sources.  My sister is a LLL leader and I have several friends who are LLL leaders so I also sought their counsel. 

 

After a month or so I sought medical help.  My family doctor agreed it looked like a plugged duct.  Same things…..massage, compress, etc.  After 6 weeks I called my midwife and she left a message with the nurse to try lecithin and echinacea.  I tried this and thought it looked a bit better but by two months my breast was swollen, red, and hot.  It had a rash, looked pitted and my nipple was inverting.  I kept looking at web sites but I couldn’t figure out why my breast seemed to have a fever and I didn’t.    

 

My husband finally told me I needed to get in to a doctor again.  This time I insisted (I had called three times and been put off by my Ob/Gyn receptionists who kept asking if I had a fever).  I finally saw a doctor at 4 pm, two months after I had first thought I had a plugged duct.  A week later on February 3^rd I was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer.

 

Inflammatory breast cancer will only affect 5-6% of breast cancer patients, but it is very dangerous and very deadly if not caught soon enough.  I am lucky I only let it go for 2-3 months.  After chemo and a double mastectomy I am cancer free.  I will start radiation in a week.  I have met many women who have not been so lucky.  I am horrified when I read how many women think they have plugged ducts while breastfeeding or pregnant.  Most women who get IBC will be either pregnant, breastfeeding or in menopause.  But if a woman gets cancer before the age of 40 it is so much more aggressive.  Catching it early is critical.

 

I realize this is a sensitive issue because in no way do I want to scare women from breastfeeding.  I certainly thought I was at low risk because I breastfed!  But I would ask that you consider including in your literature online, your publications and in the training of your leaders that a plugged duct should not last more than two weeks.  I would strongly urge you to put the symptoms of IBC somewhere on your site and encourage women to seek medical attention if it lasts more than two weeks.

 

I am quite certain you would save lives if you did this.  A woman who I blogged with recently passed away from IBC.  She noticed a plugged duct when she was pregnant but waited till her son was 5 months old to seek medical attention.  It was too late.  It had spread to her upper lymph system.  She had six children.  You can read about punk rock mommy here.

 

LLL was a wonderful resource for me before I had children.  I was considered a champion nurser by the nurses after the birth of my first child because we nursed so well!  I loved going to meetings and require my Bradley students to attend meetings and read The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding.  I recently donated on behalf of my sister who has assisted dozens of women on their breastfeeding journey.  So of course LLL was the first place I looked for help. 

 

Please continue to advocate on behalf of all women by sharing as much information as possible and making sure women have all the information they need to not only breastfeed healthy babies but live healthy lives themselves.

 

Sincerely,

 

Jennifer Starr-Reivitt